


Listen, Hear Me

by Kuroeia (Empatheia)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-19
Updated: 2007-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Kuroeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barring the doors to keep the memories out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen, Hear Me

If there is one thing Kyouraku Shunsui is, it is a good listener.

If there is one thing Matsumoto Rangiku is, it is a good talker.

There are days when the sky above them is so painfully blue and the air so scoured and empty that they have no choice but to hide in the shadows and drink together.

They have a mutual love of sake and doing nothing, and have the added benefit of being so hopelessly in love with other people that attraction never even bothers trying to happen between them, so it seems natural that they should be friends. (In fact, it is an accident that they are, a coincidence of alcohol and timing that so easily might never have happened, but they make a point not to think about things like that if they can help it.)

When the silence of her room is too harsh around her, she sends him a note by butterfly and starts walking before he has a chance to reply, since she already knows what he'll say.

When the long stretch of years before him is too desolate to look at, he invites her over for tea in the middle of the night.

The hallways are always empty and frighteningly quiet after dark. At midnight, it is possible to be more alone that it is during the day. She runs through them as fast as she can in her nightgown, fast enough that the silence can't quite keep up, until she reaches his room and feels safe enough to smile again.

He tells her that she's not as tough as she looks, and in retribution she braids his hair and threatens to take a picture with the camera she brought from the real world. He reminds her that it won't work here, Soul Society is too dead for things like that to function, and she laughs and punches him affectionately in the arm.

And they drink, and sleep close enough to feel the warmth.

This way, they keep the quiet ghosts of memory at bay.

**X**

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by: taekwonangel  
> Prompt: [Kristin Hersh - Your Ghost](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VA8uaumikU)


End file.
